WTE Fiadhna

Female F (Fiadhna) hatched in mid-April on the island of Leka 190 kilometres NNW of the city of Trondheim in west central Norway. In mid-June Fiadhna was collected on Leka from a cliff nest site by ornithologists Bertil Nyheim, S. Garstad, and F. Pedersen from Prosject Havørn (Project Sea Eagle). Before transport to Kerry, Fiadhna was temporarily housed at our holding site in a converted barn in Stjørdal only five minutes from Vaernes airport where it was expertly looked after by Tom Roger Østeras. On 26 June Fiadhna weighed 5.8 kilos and was estimated to be 10 weeks old based on her tail length.

On 27 June Fiadhna was flown from Trondheim to Kerry along with 19 other eaglets and was housed in a large cage in Killarney National Park with a Frøya female. On 4 August we attached PVC wing-tags (white on right and green on left) and a solar-powered GPS satellite transmitter. The 70g solar PTT-100 from Microwave Telemetry takes GPS fixes every hour during summer daylight hours with the data transmitted to Argos on day 3.

On 7 August Fiadhna was released along with eight other eaglets. Unlike eagles released in previous years which have largely remained on the west shore of Lough Leane in Killarney for the first few weeks after release, Fiadhna flew 2.5km across the lake to Innisfallen Island, an ancient monastic settlement, where she remained for the next three nights. On 10 August Fiadhna moved east onto the "mainland" remaining in the Demense-Knockreer area until 14 August when she moved north of Killarney town. On 16 August Fiadhna left Kerry flying some 110km east to the Comeragh Mountains in south Tipperary, dispersing even further over the next few days.

Fiadhna is named after 10 year old Fiadhna Tangney who lives in the Black Valley in Co. Kerry. Fiadhna helped paint the wing tags for the eagles and has a great love of the birds. Fiadhna (the eagle) has been an adventurous bird in her first weeks since release. Check out this website regularly to find out her latest exciting movements. We hope that in five years time Fiadhna will be nesting and rearing chicks of her own somewhere in Kerry!